A mortise is essentially a recess in a work piece, and may be provided either to receive a portion of an adjoining piece, or to provide a chamber for accommodating a fitting of any description. Recent developments in the construction of cabinets, partitions, and furniture have centered in the utilization of a particular form of clip marketed under the trademark MOD-EEZ. These clips have an inclined ramp adapted to receive the head of a projection secured to the piece being joined. Relative lateral movement between the two pieces engages the head with the underside of the ramp, and pulls the two work pieces tightly together. Some models of this clip also have a latch that locks the head in place by preventing withdrawal along the ramp. The clip is secured in place within the recess by screw-type fastenings. The present invention provides a machine for forming the recess and providing the holes to receive the screws.
Previous equipment for performing this function has separated the formation of the mortise from the drilling of the screw holes either as two totally separate operations, or as functions formed at two separate stations of operation on the machine. The use of these clips is so extensive that a few seconds here and there in performing the necessary machine operations become a significant factor in the overall cost. Even when machines are fully automated, the separation of the mortising operation from the drilling inherently involves loss of time and structural problems in the machine.
It is obvious that the formation of a mortise necessarily involves at least a plunging movement in which the rotating routing cutter is axially engaged into the work piece, combined with a lateral movement as the mortise is elongated. The clip having a latch also require a side cut-out in the mortise to provide access for a screwdriver to disengage the latch. The machine must therefor provide three directions of relatively transverse movement. This sort of requirement is commonly met in machine design by the provision of transverse guideways.